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Chinese scientists have successfully cloned two macaques from adult somatic cells, using a similar method to that which cloned Dolly the sheep.

Unlike animals cloned from an embryo cell, Zhong Zhong and her sister Hua Hua, born at Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in November and December 2017 respectively, are the first primates to be cloned from somatic cells, China News Service reports.

In 1996, Dolly became the first mammal cloned from a somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. Since then, other mammals, including cows, dogs and cats, have all been born using the same body cell, but this is the first time a primate has been reproduced in this way.

The groundbreaking result is expected to produce a large number of macaques with the same genetic background within the next year, which, scientists believe, is key to building an animal simulation model for brain science and human illness research.

“If the subjects have different genetic backgrounds, the results from the experimental and control groups will not be very convincing,” explained Sun Qiang, a researcher at SIBS and leader of the clone team.

Sun also noted that this is the same reasoning behind why human use rats, which can breed rapidly, to conduct medical experiments. However, a rat's brain differs greatly to that of a human's, rendering any related medicine tested on the rodents invalid.

The cloning technology used with the macaques could speed up medical research and development in terms of Alzheimer's and autism, immunologic deficiencies and tumours, as well as metabolic disorders.

Chi Dehua
has been a staff editor at GBTIMES since 2013. She covers foreign affairs, business and culture.